4.1 Overview regarding the category and distribution of scientific literature
Preliminary Web of science search results produced 1,395 scientific bibliographies. Following the refinement process, there were 1 334 documents relevant to the article's objective. In particular, 1334 scientific papers span 107 research fields. "environmental science" led the list with an astonishing 54.048% (721 documents), followed by "green sustainable scientific technology" (22.289%), "economics" (20.54%), and "environmental studies" (16.79%). (224 documents). Energy Fuels is a highly promising research group, with 141 papers representing 10.57 percent. The following study topics contain little scientific literature and are unrelated to the author's research objectives. The information is provided in Table 1.
Table 1: Web of Science Categories with the fields has over ten documents.
Web of Science Categories
|
Record Count
|
% of 1,334
|
Environmental Sciences
|
721
|
54,048
|
Green Sustainable Science Technology
|
284
|
21,289
|
Economics
|
274
|
20,54
|
Environmental Studies
|
224
|
16,792
|
Energy Fuels
|
141
|
10,57
|
Engineering Environmental
|
132
|
9,895
|
Business
|
44
|
3,298
|
Management
|
37
|
2,774
|
Regional Urban Planning
|
34
|
2,549
|
Development Studies
|
30
|
2,249
|
Thermodynamics
|
30
|
2,249
|
Public Environmental Occupational Health
|
25
|
1,874
|
Business Finance
|
24
|
1,799
|
Multidisciplinary Sciences
|
17
|
1,274
|
Ecology
|
15
|
1,124
|
Public Administration
|
15
|
1,124
|
Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
|
15
|
1,124
|
Geosciences Multidisciplinary
|
11
|
0,825
|
Source: Author’s analyze based on WOS
According to Table 1, the study material spans a number of topics. However, the scope and depth of research in many topics varies substantially. For instance, environmental science accounts for the majority of research, followed by economic groupings such as "business" and "management" at 3% and 2%, respectively.
For a more comprehensive study of publishers, journals, and conference proceedings, Table 2 provides a fuller picture of the most prolific publishers.
It is evident that Elsevier and Springer Nature dominate the rankings, since each have more than 400 publications, which is four times as many as MDPI, the third-placed publisher. It is evident that Western European periodicals are particularly concerned with environmental concerns. (Elsevier, Netherlands; Springer Nature, German-British; MDPI, Switzerland).
4.2 The geographical dimensions
If many writers are from different nations, the national wealth of an article relies on the complete address of the first author. (Shi, Blainey, Sun, & Jing, 2020). As demonstrated in Table 2, China ranks first in the area of accessibility research, with 704 studies accounting for 52.774%, compared to big industrialized nations such as the United States with 103 studies on FDI and components of green economy or Korea with 1,874% and 25 studies. Thus, the majority of nations have contributed to this study subject; nevertheless, the depth of the problem that has attracted the attention of researchers varies on the real circumstances of each country.
Table 2: Research contribution by country
Countries/Regions
|
Record Count
|
% of 1,334
|
China
|
704
|
52,774
|
Pakistan
|
191
|
14,318
|
Turkey
|
159
|
11,919
|
Usa
|
103
|
7,721
|
Malaysia
|
74
|
5,547
|
India
|
63
|
4,723
|
England
|
60
|
4,498
|
Saudi Arabia
|
55
|
4,123
|
Vietnam
|
49
|
3,673
|
France
|
40
|
2,999
|
Australia
|
38
|
2,849
|
Nigeria
|
37
|
2,774
|
Tunisia
|
31
|
2,324
|
Ghana
|
30
|
2,249
|
Germany
|
29
|
2,174
|
South Korea
|
25
|
1,874
|
Spain
|
25
|
1,874
|
Bangladesh
|
21
|
1,574
|
Canada
|
21
|
1,574
|
Japan
|
21
|
1,574
|
Taiwan
|
20
|
1,499
|
Source: Author’s analyze base on WOS
4.3 Temporal distribution
Statistics on the distribution of the number of studies over time are the most straightforward method for determining the historical pattern of research within a certain time period. In this research, based on chart 1, the first studies appeared in 1995; for the subsequent 16 years, the number of yearly studies continued to exist but never surpassed 10.
In the past, when the phrase "fourth industrial revolution" was first used in Germany, the global community started to focus on environmental sustainability. This time may be considered the "infancy" of research, since the number of publications published has increased significantly from seven in 2011 to twenty-two in 2014. After the World Economic Forum announced the opening of the fourth industrial revolution center in San Francisco and the publication of the same book in 2016 (Schwab, 2016) have piqued the interest of researchers, a decade of explosive research has begun, with the number of publications reaching a peak of 374 in 2021. In addition, as the need for capital investment rises, the pressure of the global market necessitates that nations strengthen their competitive position while addressing environmental issues to progress toward "green FDI" and "green economy."
4.4. Co-citation analysis results
4.4.1. Cluster analysis
Understanding research trends requires a careful examination of the information that keywords might provide. However, dispersed and fragmented keywords make it difficult to define the aim and organization of the study. Cluster analysis summarizes possible and overlapping semantic subjects via the mathematical and statistical processing of text input (Hossain, Prybutok, & Evangelopoulos, 2011). In addition, via the use of multidimensional cluster analysis to study merging ideas with strong internal linkages, each cluster generated will reveal the popularity and extent of the research topic. The clusters in Figure 3 are numbered in descending order of cluster size, so FDI and CO2 emissions are the primary clusters rather than FDI and economic growth. In addition, clusters are named automatically according to CiteSpace's default computation (Zhang X., 2011).
Cluster 0,3,8,10: Whether or not FDI hurts the environment depends significantly on the environmental regulations of that country, the economic development status, and the government of the host country. Because the more open economies, the looser environmental regulations are adopted (Demena & Afesorgborb, 2020). Besides, the digital life with the popularity of e-commerce has led to the explosion of online shopping, causing a significant increase in emissions (Liang et al., 2021). Therefore, the government needs to enact environmentally friendly policies to raise environmental awareness, and stricter environmental regulations can make the economy shift towards less polluting technology (Panayotou, 1993)
Cluster 1, 6: If a country has no environmental regulations or low environmental standards, there will be consequences of polluting emissions such as carbon productivity, chemical oxygen demand in industry, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide in the industrial exhaust, industrial carbon black and dust (Wang et al., 2020).
Cluster 2.7: when FDI becomes one of the main drivers of economic growth and trade protectionism increases globally, FDI becomes an avenue for companies to enter markets protected by means of manufacturing directly in those countries. However, increasing competitive pressure and increasing costs of pollution reduction in developed countries and strict environmental regulations in developed countries resulting in companies being forced to adopt cost-effective production techniques that can harm countries with lower economies and more lax regulation.
Cluster 4.9: spatial effect, goal programming: spatial dependence significantly affects the location selection decision of FDI. The spatial dependence between locations can be based on economic or administrative distance (Blanc-Brude, Cookson, Piesse, & Strange, 2014). In addition, an indispensable part of addressing the needs of stakeholders in the process of capital investment from abroad to host countries is to establish a multi-objective support model. As a result, stakeholder priorities are integrated into consensus-based decision-making and trade-offs (Salem et al., 2020).
Cluster 5: technology innovation: FDI brings income and employment benefits to the host country and promotes domestic companies to innovate in technology (Loukil, 2016). In the past few years, when the environmental issue brought on by FDI has become hotter, several companies have transferred green technology, making positive changes to the domestic industrial environment.
4.4.2 Evolution of keywords
For each study, keywords convey the study's material, draw the attention of researchers, and identify study patterns (Zhang X., 2011). As demonstrated in Table 3, the author utilizes CiteSpaces to identify the top 20 terms with the most citations over time.
The author established a timeline from 1995 to 2021, extracting the most-cited keywords and the top 20 most-extracted keywords through 2019. Table 3 demonstrates that the extracted keywords skyrocketed. For example, the term "trade" was the most explosive from 2002 to 2016 with an explosive strength of 8.43; this indicates that scientists are now interested in commerce. Once commercial development reached a certain level, "environmental control" became apparent, with 6.29-year-long extracts. During 2012-2015, research on FDI and FDI gained popularity, with the extracted number reaching 5.4. There is an interchange between open economies; the term "international commerce" with an extract of 5.88 lasted four years, from 2015 to 2019. Prior to this point, when the transfer of FDI from one nation to another has had negative environmental effects, "energy clean" requires immediate investment and attention. Even if the quantity taken is rather low in comparison to the top twenty figures, it can be noted that the exciting trend of scientists is towards the environment in order to create sustainable growth.
4.4.3 Analysis of co-author networks in academia and countries
The network of academic and international co-authors describes the links between various academic locations (Zhao et al., 2017). In Figure 5, the co-authoring network across nations reveals that China made the most significant intellectual contributions, followed by the United States, Turkey, Pakistan, and Malaysia. Moreover, comparing Figure 5 to Figure 4, the majority of the most prestigious institutes and universities, including Beijing Institute of Technology, Jiangsu University, Nanjing University, Southwestern University Finance & Economics, Istanbul Gelisim University, and University Wah, originated in these nations. These findings indicate that nations with a highly competitive market position and robust economies, such as the United States and China, give greater attention to foreign direct investment, economic development, and environmental challenges. Not only does Pakistan have a close partnership with China, but it also has significant foreign investments in other sectors, including telecommunications, real estate, and energy (Degong et al., 2020). Therefore, it is no longer contentious for a rapidly developing nation like Pakistan to pay attention to FDI and sustainable economic growth challenges. In another respect, the growth of the Free E-Commerce Agreement (FTA) has allowed Malaysia and Turkey to develop significant ties. Consequently, the strategic vision is no longer restricted to the primary investment objective, but now encompasses environmental challenges and sustainable development, particularly in the context of severe pollution and emissions in Malaysia and Turkey (Hitam & Borhan, 2012); (Kizilkaya, 2017).
4.4.4 Reference co-citation analyses
Co-reference analysis networks are often used to investigate the structure and development of a topic by describing the context of co-cited references (Leydesdorff, 2005). Figure 8 illustrates a co-citation network with 897 nodes and 4052 linkages, based on 940 genuine texts picked between 1995 and 2021. When observed in the first network map, the network's structure is broad and the connections between citations are composed of distinct components. However, when focused on the core portion, the map reveals the citation density of the references over time. Each concentric circle in Figure 9 represents a research; the wider the circle, the greater the number of citations; the circle's color indicates the number of years referenced. Thus, red will represent the number of most recent citation years, and the research with the longest citation years and the most citations will be represented by the broader circle with more citation rings. Notable references include Zhang & Zhou (2016), Zhu et al. (2016), and Tang & Tan (2016). (2015). Among these, the work by Zhang and Zhou (2016) with findings confirming the aura pollution concept and several citations stands out.
Citation analysis is applied to detect landmark articles with high citation growth (Chen, Dubin, & Kim, 2014). High-cited articles in a certain period will indicate a turning point in changing research thinking or research trends of researchers.
In Table 4, it is evident that Lau et al(2014) .'s research has the highest extraction index from 2015-2019, with a value of 23.63. During this time period, it can be argued that the scientific community paid close attention to and valued Lau et alstudy .'s contribution (2014). Combining FDI and commerce, Lau et al. (2014) investigated the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. In the same way that FDI and trade have direct effects on CO2 emissions and economic development, the research revealed that FDI contributes to greater growth and environmental deterioration. In addition, the research suggests that recruiting FDI that is focused on technology is crucial for reducing environmental waste. Shahbaz M. et al(2015) .'s popularity increased from 2018 to 2021. This research explores the nonlinear connection between foreign direct investment and environmental deterioration. The research also verified the polluted paradise hypothesis (PHH) and found a two-way causal relationship between CO2 and FDI emissions. Taking two papers with a large number of citations from two different time periods, the study substance of interest remains FDI and environmental concerns. This subject will become a new trend in the future, when it is no longer a country-specific issue but a worldwide one.
4.4.5 Journal co-citation
Research co-citation journals to find the journal with the highest citation index for the period 1995 to 2021. Table 5 shows the 25 journals with the highest citations.
The number of journal citations is proportional to the journal's influence on researchers. Most of these journals have in-depth research on economics and environmental economics; these journals receive most citations from 2002, and the majority ending in 2017, which illustrates that data-related publications have attracted increasing attention from the science community. Moreover, from 2015 to 2021, research data is no longer focused on specialized journals but has interest from journals in other fields such as European Journals Politics or Empirical Tests Policy. Thus, the research problem is no longer the investment and focus of a particular discipline, but it is also a common problem for other industries.